The present invention relates to a remote maintenance system for maintaining an industrial equipment installed at a remote location.
Maintenance against a trouble in an industrial equipment requiring maintenance, such as a semiconductor device manufacturing apparatus has been made such that, upon occurrence of a trouble, maintenance personnel instruct a countermeasure to an operator for the manufacturing apparatus through telephone or facsimile communication or directly visit a factory where the manufacturing apparatus is installed. This also applies to periodical maintenance.
Along with recent increases in investment in the semiconductor industries, the number of installed production equipments increases to cause a chronic shortage in maintenance personnel. To achieve a low cost, production sites have been distributed at domestic and foreign remote locations. Under these circumstances, it becomes more difficult to provide countermeasures against troubles and periodic maintenance. The distributed production locations result in distribution of information about maintenance of manufacturing apparatuses. This makes it difficult to perform centralized management of information. The experiences of past troubles cannot be effectively utilized.